AIs Are Getting Better at Finding and Exploiting Security Vulnerabilities

From an Anthropic blog post: In a recent evaluation of AI models’ cyber capabilities, current Claude models can now succeed at multistage attacks on networks with dozens of hosts using only standard, open-source tools, instead of the custom tools needed by previous generations. This illustrates h...

Threat Source newsletter (Feb. 13, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. This month’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday was particularly hefty, with the company disclosing nearly 100 vulnerabilities — three of which Tal...

U.S. Charges 4 Chinese Military Hackers Over Equifax Data Breach

The United States Department of Justice today announced charges against 4 Chinese military hackers who were allegedly behind the Equifax data breach that exposed the personal and financial data of nearly 150 million Americans. In a joint press conference held today with the Attorney General Willi...

This Week in Security News: Unpatched Systems and Lateral Phishing

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about an attack against Elasticsearch that delivers backdoors as its payload. Additionally, read how cybercriminals are turning to...

Where's the Equifax Data? Does It Matter?

It’s been 17 months since the infamous 2017 Equifax data breach was revealed to have compromised the data of about 147.9 million people i.e., almost every adult in the U.S., with more than 45 percent of the population directly affected by the incident. But an investigative report from CNBC found...

Congressional Report on the 2017 Equifax Data Breach

The US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has just released a comprehensive report on the 2017 Equifax hack. It's a great piece of writing, with a detailed timeline, root cause analysis, and lessons learned. Lance Spitzner also commented on this. Here is my...

Vermont Librarian Wins Small-Claims Suit Against Equifax

In a David-and-Goliath moment, a 49-year-old librarian has won damages against credit giant Equifax, in the wake of its head-spinningly massive 2017 data breach. It’s a small but significant victory: a small claims court awarded $600 to Jessamyn West, native of the small town of Randolph in Orang...

Survey: Americans Spent $1.4B on Credit Freeze Fees in Wake of Equifax Breach

Almost 20 percent of Americans froze their credit file with one or more of the big three credit bureaus in the wake of last year's data breach at Equifax, costing consumers an estimated $1.4 billion, according to a new study. The findings come as lawmakers in Congress are debating legislation tha...

Amazon's Whole Foods Market Suffers Credit Card Breach In Some Stores

Another day, another data breach. This time Amazon-owned grocery chain has fallen victim to a credit card security breach. Whole Foods Market—acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion in late August—disclosed Thursday that hackers were able to gain unauthorized access to credit card information for it...

FTC Releases Alerts on Protecting Against Identity Theft

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has released two alerts to educate consumers on recommended protections against identity theft after the recent data breach at Equifax. Users should consider placing security freezes with the three major credit reporting agencies: Equifax, Transunion, and Experian...

Potential Phishing Scams Related to Equifax Data Breach

The Federal Trade Commission FTC has released an alert on phishing attacks related to the Equifax data breach. Phishing attacks try to trick message recipients into sharing sensitive information with cyber criminals. FTC warns consumers to be wary of calls or emails purporting to be from Equifax...

Equifax Data Breach: Steps You should Take to Protect Yourself

Equifax has suffered one of the largest data breaches in history that has left highly sensitive data of as many as 143 million people—that's nearly half of the US population—in the hands of hackers. Based on the company's investigation, some unknown hackers managed to exploit a security flaw on t...